The Motor Girls on Cedar Lake | Page 9

for the fun of it."
"Oh you'll get paid all right," Jack assured him, "and so will the fellow who stole our boat--when we catch him."
"I'll chip in for that," said Walter. "Never saw such a trick. Hello Bess, also howdy Belle. My, isn't it fine to be rescued from a desert island by three pretty girls?"
"Wallie! Wallie. There's a stranger aboard," warned Cora.
"Oh yes, this is Ben--Ben--"
"Just Ben," interrupted the man at the wheel, with a chuckle.
"But he has been so kind," added Cora. "Only for him we should never have found out where you were."
"If you hadn't taken us off that old sieve," put in Ed, "I think we would soon have had to swim back to the island. We never could have made the shore in that thing, neither could we swim that distance."
"S'long Jim!" called Ben, as the old rowboat was sent off in the darkness.
"See, he isn't balin' her now," he told the boys.
"How's that?" all asked in chorus.
"Oh, that's a great boat--leaks to order," replied Ben, as he turned over the fly wheel and Cora's craft shot swiftly away from the island.
The boys were too busy talking to the girls, and the latter were too busy asking questions, to go further into the matter of the leaking boat, but Cora did not fail to notice that the craft must have "leaked to order." "What could that man have intended doing? Did he want to sink the boat?" she was wondering.
"Well, if we haven't had a pretty time of it," said Ed. "First, we had to go up trees to get out of the way of something--we are not yet sure whether it was man or beast. Then when we crawled down, and made for the shore the canoe was gone clear out of sight."
"Haven't you any idea who took it?" Cora asked.
"Wish we had--I'll wager he would have to sleep out of doors to-night," threatened Jack. "It was the meanest trick."
Cora gave Bess the signal to keep still about having seen a canoe at the back of Jim Peter's rowboat that afternoon. Cora was convinced that Ben knew what he was talking about when he warned her to be careful of Jim Peters.
"But why did you go back to the island?" asked Cora. "I thought you were going to spend the afternoon with us girls?"
"We were, then again we couldn't," answered her brother. "We had a very important appointment at Far Island."
"Ben, don't you want one of us to run her?" asked Ed. "We were to have had a try--"
"Nope. This here is the best fun I can have, and this boat is a beauty," replied the old man. "If I had one that could go like this and carry so many passengers I'd give up the dock."
"Yes, a boat like this would earn its own living," agreed Jack. "Run her as long as you like to, Ben. It gives us a chance--ahem--"
"To sit nearer your sisters," finished Ben, with a sly laugh.
"All's well that ends well," quoted Belle to Ed, for she was scarcely able yet to draw a free breath--her anxiety had been too keen. "I cannot believe that we are all here together again."
"Just pinch me," said Ed laughing, "and if I don't give our war whoop you may be sure this is not me--I am still on the Robinson ranch--there, that was an unpremeditated pun; I mean the old Robinson Crusoe and I forgot that he was great-grandfather to the present Robinson twins."
"Say, Ed," put in Walter, "what do you say if we buy a houseboat? This has the camp beaten to a frazzle."
"It's all right on such a night," replied Ed, "but houseboats, I believe, cost money, and our camp is rented to us for the season. Oh fickle Wallie! To fall in love with a motor boat, just because her name is Pet."
Walter was talking to Cora before Ed had finished speaking to him. That was Walter's irresistible way with the girls.
"No use talking, sis," said Jack, "this sail was worth being stranded for. If you are in no hurry, Ben, suppose we prolong it. Take us some place where we haven't been. You know the rounds of Cedar Lake."
This plan was agreed to, and, though the boys were not dressed as they would wish to have been, it was evening on the water, and their jersey suits were not altogether out of place.
"But what I would like to get at," began Ed, not being able to dismiss the subject, "is who stole our boat?"
"It may have drifted away," suggested Cora wisely. "There was a great fleet on the lake to-day, and any small boy might have let your boat go."
"Well, if I should lay hold of such a chap," declared Jack grimly, "he will grow up quickly. He